The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up three additional counters at the Department of Passport at Narayanhiti in a bid to provide respite to passport-seekers.

Officiating Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagee inaugurated the counters today. Earlier, passport-seekers would queue up from wee hours till late afternoon to apply for the document.

“We hope the added counters will save passport-seekers’ time,” Bairagee said.

Director-General of the department, Ramesh Khanal, said now on, people don’t have to turn up at 7 am to submit their documents. “No one has to wait for over two hours to submit papers,” he added.

Meanwhile, the department has requested the Ministry of Finance to provide incentives to those staffers, who have been working for more than eight hours daily.

“The staff at the DoP have been working from early morning till late evening without any perks and benefits for years,” said DG Khanal.

Currently, some government offices, including tax and revenue offices, and the Office of the President and the Vice-President, provide perks and allowances based on their staff’s additional contribution to their job.

Published on: 20 January 2014 | The Himalayan Times